Faculty & Staff

Associate Dean, College of Arts and MediaDirector, School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationsAdvertising

Janet Dooley is an associate professor of advertising, director of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications and associate dean of the College of Arts and Media. She received her B. A. in Journalism with an advertising concentration from Marshall University, an M.S. in Communications from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and is A.B.D. in International and Intercultural Communications with a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Professor Dooley has been teaching at Marshall University since 1979, but before joining academia she worked in the industry in newspaper, in radio, in public information and as a communications director of a regional museum. She has taught copywriting, public relations, layout and design, media, research, strategy, and campaigns and often teaches other school of journalism and mass communications service courses and graduate classes. She is pleased to have fielded an American Advertising Federation (AAF) National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) team each year during her tenure. Marshall’s AAF teams have failed to place at the district level only 14 times since 1983.
Professor Dooley’s affiliation with the AAF goes back to 1977 when she joined the Advertising Club of Huntington in West Virginia where she served on the board of directors for fourteen years with three terms as president. In 1986 the Huntington club recognized her with a Silver Medal. She has also been Third Lieutenant Governor of the 5th District AAF. She served on the AAF National Education Executive Council (formerly the National Academic Committee) from 1984 to 2012. She has co-advised Marshall’s AAF chapter during her entire tenure, and she co-advised a Students in Free Enterprise team from 2004 to 2008.
Other professional memberships include American Academy of Advertising and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. She is currently a Koppenhaver Center Fellow with the Lillian Koppenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communications.
Her freelance and consulting clients include the National Show Horse News magazine, Cabell-Wayne Services for the Visually Impaired, Kid’stuff Restorations, and MOM U.S.A. Her research interests include international communication, environmental communications and issues concerning women and minorities in the field.
Community organizations in which she has participated include All West Virginia City, Huntington Endowment for the Arts, Appalachian Craftsmen, Family Leaning Center, Downtown Huntington Partners and Create Huntington.
​She is a 2002 recipient of the Marshall and Shirley Reynolds Professor of the Year, and she received the Marshall University Distinguished Service Award in 2006.

Journalism Division

Broadcast Journalism

Prof. Dan Hollis is the 2012 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Council for Advancement and Support of Education West Virginia Professor of the Year and the 2011 recipient of Marshall University’s Marshall and Shirley Reynolds Outstanding Teacher Award.

Hollis has been with the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications since 1999 and primarily teaches JMC 101: Media Literacy and JMC 402: Mass Communications Law.

Hollis also regularly produces award-winning video projects on a full range of topics including the roller derby, road bowling and glass making. His videos can be found on youtube.com.

Digital Journalism

​Professor Rebecca Johnson is a Kentucky native who joined the faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University in 1976. She attended Dabney S. Lancaster Community College and Ohio State University before completing both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism at Marshall. In addition, Professor Johnson attended Ohio University where she completed doctoral course work in law and responsibility, international journalism, and history with a minor in sociology. Professor Johnson has taught a variety of courses including photojournalism, news reporting, fundamentals of writing and editing, computer-assisted reporting, research and information gathering, magazine writing, magazine editing and production, and international communication. Currently her teaching focus includes digital imaging, web strategies, web design and multimedia reporting. A magazine writer, photographer and consultant, she worked as a newspaper copy editor, resort photographer, horse trainer and riding instructor.

Coordinator, Journalism DivisionPrint Journalism

Burnis R. Morris, Carter G. Woodson Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications, directs the high school workshop. Professor Morris is engaged in research about Woodson, “the Father of African-American history,” and his use of the press to promote black history. In recognition of his research, Professor Morris has received several honors, including being named Marshall University’s 2011-2012 Distinguished John Deaver Drinko Academy Fellow, Emory University’s Carter G. Woodson Fellow (summer 2012) and 2011-2012 West Virginia Humanities Council Fellow. He has presented papers on Woodson at meetings of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, an organization founded by Woodson in 1915. Professor Morris is known nationally for his work to improve news coverage of tax-exempt organizations, and he has received more than $1 million in grants supporting that work and other programs he created at Marshall University and the University of Mississippi to attract the best and brightest students to careers in journalism.

Dr. Robert Rabe teaches news reporting and writing, history of mass communication, and media and cultural studies at Marshall University, where he has been on the faculty since 2007. Rabe earned a BA in American History from the University of Nebraska and a MA and PhD in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin. He has published a number of articles, book chapters, and reviews about journalism and history. He is currently finishing an article about press coverage of the 1964 presidential election and writing a book about the syndicated newspaper columnist Marquis W. Childs and the political history of the Cold War. He lives in Huntington with his wife Cory and their two cats.

Broadcast JournalismMU Report, Adviser

Dr. Chris Swindell is an associate professor of journalism and a veteran television reporter and anchor who teaches television, ethics, history and graduate classes. He earned his Ph.D. in 2006 in communication at the University of Kentucky.

Parthenon, AdviserPrint Journalism

Mass Communications Division

Radio-Television Production & ManagementWMUL-FM, Adviser

Dr. Charles G. Bailey, professor of journalism and mass communications, is faculty manager of WMUL-FM (88.1 MHz). Under Dr. Bailey’s guidance Marshall University’s radio station and its student broadcasters have won more than 1,400 awards since 1985. In 2013,
Dr. Bailey was inducted into the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Also he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association during the WVAPBA Convention in Huntington in 2007 and was recognized by the College Media Advisers, Inc. with the 1995 Distinguished 4-Year Broadcast Adviser Award.

Public RelationsPRSSA, Adviser

Dr. Terry L. Hapney, Jr., associate professor of public relations in the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University (MU), is adviser to MU’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter and a writer/columnist for a newspaper in the Tri-State area of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

A former journalism and communication professor at a state university in Ohio where he spent over a decade of his career, Hapney served as adviser to the student newspaper and student radio group there. Prior to his faculty role at Shawnee State University (SSU), Hapney was director of communications and assistant to the president at the university—the chief public relations administrator— working with four different presidents during his tenure there. Before SSU, Hapney served as director of promotions and public relations for a major radio broadcasting company with 10 radio stations (two of which were the highest-rated stations, according to Arbitron, in the market). He was the highest-rated evening and midday radio air personality during his time there.

Hapney has taught public relations, journalism, advertising, mass communications, communication studies, English, and business communications graduate and undergraduate courses since 1994. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in communication (B.A.) from the University of Kentucky, a Master of Arts in journalism (M.A.J.) from Marshall University, a Master of Arts in public relations (M.A.) from Kent State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Dayton.

In 2013, Hapney was named “Public Relations Educator of the Year” by the West Virginia chapter of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). His research on student newspaper governance on public university campuses is published in multiple state, national, and international scholarly/peer-reviewed journals. His undergraduate and graduate students at Marshall University have conducted many PRSA-award winning campaigns for local nonprofit agencies, raising awareness and tens of thousands of dollars for worthy causes. Awards include state PRSA Crystal Awards as well as regional PRSA Diamond Awards (six-state region, including West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan).

With well over a quarter century of professional experience in public relations, marketing, radio and television broadcasting, advertising, and as a print journalist in the Huntington-Ashland and Lexington, Ky., markets, Hapney has served for nearly two decades as co-anchor for the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade (longest-running Memorial Day parade in the U.S.) broadcast on OK-TV (Ohio/Kentucky television) on Time Warner Cable in Lawrence County, Ohio, and Boyd and Greenup counties in Kentucky. He is also a board member for Public Relations Society of America—West Virginia chapter.

Hapney is a life-long resident of the Tri-State area of Ohio/Ky./W.Va. (with the exception of the years he lived in Lexington while at UK). He and his wife have two biological sons and a daughter they adopted from China. They reside on the banks of the Ohio River along with their dog, Willow, and cats, Yoda and Luke.

Advertising

Associate Professor Chris Ingersoll’s background includes more than twenty years as an advertising and publications designer. She completed an MFA at Stephen F. Austin State University with a focus on touch screen technology, and an MA in Advertising and Design from Syracuse University directed at the study of historic foundations in design and how design transforms through progressive technology.

Public Relations / Video

Jason Lovins joined the faculty of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2014 as an assistant professor. He is completing his doctoral studies with an emphasis in the language of crisis communication.

Lovins is a 28-year management veteran of public relations practice and news reporting and editing. He worked as managing editor at two Ohio newspapers and has led PR teams for more than a decade in the hospital industry and more recently in environmental cleanup.

Lovins has served as an adjunct or teaching assistant at three state universities, instructing in a range of PR and news courses, as well as business writing and publishing layout/design. His research interests include organizational crisis communication response models and news reporting quality issues in the wake of media convergence.

Through his classroom work with students and research, Lovins emphasizes the importance of a foundation in journalism field experience to support successful public relations practice. He maintains that essential experience gathering and reporting news will empower the aspiring PR/communications strategist with a much stronger skill set for the support of all kinds of organizations.

Mass Communications

Professor Jennifer Nicole Sias teaches multiple sections of the First Year Seminar and journalism classes at Marshall University. An academic librarian in a former life, Sias incorporates her background in information literacy (research) with teaching. Lately her professional and personal interests have been focused in the areas of digital video, digital storytelling, vodcasting and citizen journalism. Out of class, Sias enjoys making things, from stained glass panels to a deck and privacy fence with embedded Blenko glass. She loves spending time with her friends and animal family. She enjoys cooking, eating, reading and traveling. Kindness and “what if” are her personal mantras.